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Contents
Chapter 1: What the notions of moral liberty and necessity are
Chapter 2: The words cause and effect, action and active power
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Moral liberty gives the agent the power to act well or badly.
Like every other gift of God, this power can be misused. You
use this gift of God rightly if you
act well and wisely, as far as your best judgment can
direct you,
thereby deserving admiration and approval. You misuse the
gift if you
act contrary to what you know or suspect to be your
duty and your wisdom,
thereby thoroughly meriting disapproval and blame.
By necessity I understand the lack of the moral liberty
that I have defined above. Consider a man who is necessarily
determined always to will and to do the best thing there is to
do (this is assuming that there can be a better and a worse
in a situation where necessity reigns). This man who always
does the best possible thing would surely be innocent and
blameless. But as far as I can see he wouldnt be entitled
to the admiration and moral approval of those who knew
and believed that all his conduct was necessitated. We could
apply to him what an ancient author said of Cato:
He was good because he couldnt be any other way.
Understood literally and strictly, this statement is praise not
for Cato but for his constitution [ = his basic make-up], which
was no more Catos doing than his existence was.
On the other hand, if a man is necessarily determined to
do badly, this seems to me to arouse pity but not disapproval.
He acted badly because he couldnt act in any other
way.
Who can blame him? Necessity has no law.
If this man knows that he acted under this necessity,
doesnt he have good grounds for freeing himself from blame?
If anything is to be blamed, it isnt him but his constitution.
If God charges him with doing wrong, cant he protest to
God in the following way?
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Chapter 2: The words cause and effect, action and active power
Writings on liberty and necessity have been clouded by the
ambiguity of the words used in reasoning on that topic. The
words cause and effect, action and active power, liberty
and necessity are related to each other. The meaning of one
determines the meaning of the rest. When we try to define
them, we can do it only through synonymous words which
equally stand in need of definition. If we are to speak and
reason clearly about moral liberty, we must use those words
in their strict sense, but this is hard to do because in all
languages the words in question have had their meanings
spread out through usage.
As we cant reason about moral liberty without using
those ambiguous words, it is appropriate to identify as
clearly as possible their proper and original meanings (in
which they ought to be understood when one is dealing with
this topic), and to show what caused them to become so
ambiguous in all languages that they create obscurity and
tangles in our reasonings. I start on the first task now,
reserving the second for chapter 3.
Everything that begins to exist must have a cause of its
existence, and that cause must have had the power to give
it existence. And everything that undergoes a change must
have some cause of that change.Putting these two together,
we get:
Neither existence nor any way of existing can
begin without an efficient cause.
This principle appears very early in the mind of man; and it
is so universal and so firmly rooted in human nature that
the most determined scepticism cant eradicate it. [By efficient
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So motives
can influence action, but they dont themselves act. They are
comparable with advice or urging, which leaves a man still
at liberty. For it is pointless to give advice to someone who
doesnt have the power to do, and the power not to do, the
recommended action. Similarly, motives presuppose liberty
in the agent, and would have no influence at all if that liberty
were not there.
It is a law of nature regarding matter that
Every motion or change of motion is proportional to
the force impressed, and goes in the direction of that
force.
The theory that all our actions are necessitated holds that a
similar law holds for the actions of thinking beings. Staying
close to the physical one, we can express it thus:
Every action or change of action in a thinking being
is proportional to the force of motives impressed, and
goes in the direction of that force.
The law of nature regarding matter is based on the principle
that matter is an inert, inactive substance, which doesnt
act but is acted on; and the law of necessity must similarly
be based on the supposition that a thinking being is also
an inert, inactive substance, which doesnt act but is acted
upon.
(2) Rational beings, in proportion as they are wise and
good, will act according to the best motives; and every
rational being who does otherwise misuses his liberty. In
every situation where there is a right and a wrong, a better
and a worse, the most perfect being always infallibly acts
according to the best motives. This indeed is little more than
an identical proposition [= an elementary, trivial logical truth]; for
way of talking or thinkingthat is, its a being of reason.]
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A man can have a great influence on the voluntary determinations of other men by means of education, example and
persuasionboth sides in the liberty/necessity debate must
agree about that. When you talk me into doing something,
how far is the moral responsibility for my action mine and
how far is it yours? We dont know; but God knows and will
judge righteously.
But I would say this: if a man of superior talents can
have a great influence on the actions of his fellow creatures,
without taking away their liberty, it is surely reasonable to
allow a much greater influence of the same kind to God, who
made man. And there is no way of proving that God doesnt
have wisdom and power needed to govern free agents so that
they serve his purposes.
God may have ways of governing mans determinations
consistently with mans moral libertyways of which we have
no conception. And he who freely gave us this liberty may
limit it in any way that is needed for his wise and benevolent
purposes. The justice of his government requires that his
creatures should be accountable only for what they have
received, and not for what was was never entrusted to them.
And we are sure that the judge of all the earth will do what
is right.
So it turns out, I think, that on the supposition of
necessity there can be no moral government of the universe;
its government must be wholly mechanical, and everything
that happens in it, good or bad, must be Gods doing. And
that on the supposition of liberty there may be a perfect
moral government of the universe, consistently with Gods
accomplishing all the purposes he had in creating and
governing it.
Of the arguments to show that man is endowed with
moral liberty, the three that carry most weight with me are:
Man has moral liberty (1) because he has a natural conviction
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6: First argument
see events but we dont see the power that produces them.
We see one event to follow another, but we dont see the chain
connecting them. So the notion of power and causation cant
be acquired from external objects.
Yet the notion of cause, and the belief that every event
must have a cause that had the power to produce it, are
found so firmly established in every human mind that they
cant be rooted out. This notion and this belief must have
their origin in something in our constitution; and their
being natural to man is supported by the following five
observations.
(1) We are conscious of many voluntary exertionssome
easy, others harder, and some requiring a great effort. These
are exercises of power. And though a man may be unconscious of his power when he doesnt exercise it, he must
have both the conception of it and the belief in it when he
knowingly and willingly exercises it intending to produce
some effect.
(2) Deliberating about whether or not to do something
involves a conviction that doing it is in our power. . . .
(3) You have concluded your deliberation and now resolve
to do what has appeared to you to be the best thing to do: can
you form such a resolution or purpose without thinking that
you have the power to carry it out? No; it is impossible. . . .
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6: First argument
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6: First argument
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7: Second argument
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7: Second argument
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8: Third argument
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8: Third argument
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So if wise conduct in a man shows that he has some degree of wisdom, it also shows with equal force and clarity that
he has some degree of power over his own determinations. . . .
Descartes thought that the human body is merely a
mechanical engine and that all its motions and actions
are produced by mechanism. If such a machine could be
made to speak and to act rationally, we could indeed be
sure that its maker had both reason and active power; but
once we learned that everything the machine did was purely
mechanical we would have no reason to conclude that the
man had reason or thought. . . .
And if the necessitarian accepts this, and agrees that he
has no evidence that there is thought and reasoning in any
of his fellow men, who for all he knows may be mechanical
engines, he will be forced to admit that the maker of those
engines must have active power as well as understanding,
and that the first cause is a free agent. We have the same
reason to believe in Gods freedom as we have to believe in
8: Third argument
his existence and his wisdom. And if God acts freely, that
destroys every argument brought to prove that freedom of
action is impossible.
The First Cause gives us evidence of his power by every
effect that gives us evidence of his wisdom. And if he sees
fit to communicate to men some degree of his wisdom, no
reason can be given why he may not also pass along some
degree of his power as the talent that wisdom is to use.
Clarke has proved that the first motionor the first effect,
whatever it may becant be produced necessarily, and thus
that the first cause must be a free agent (this is in his
Demonstration of the existence and attributes of God, and
at the end of his remarks on Collinss Philosophical Inquiry
concerning Human Liberty). He shows this so clearly and
unanswerably that I have nothing to add. And I havent seen
any of the defenders of necessity bringing any objections
against his reasoning.
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be no reason but the will of God for placing this one here
and that one there, Leibniz replied that there cannot be
two particles of matteror two things of any sortthat
are perfectly alike. And this seems to have led him to
another of his grand principles, which he calls the identity
of indiscerniblesthe thesis that if x is in every way exactly
like y then x is y, or that two things cannot be exactly alike
in every way.
When the principle of sufficient reason had produced so
many surprising discoveries in philosophy, it is no wonder
that it should give an answer to the long disputed question
about human liberty. This it does in a moment:
The determination of the will is an event for which
there must be a sufficient reasonthat is, something
previous which was necessarily followed by that determination and could not have been followed by any
other; so it was necessary.
Thus we see that this principle of the necessity of a sufficient
reason for everything is very fruitful with consequences; and
by its fruits we may judge it! Those who will adopt it must
adopt all its consequences. All that is needed to establish
them all beyond dispute is to prove the truth of the principle
on which they depend.
So far as I know Leibnizs only argument in proof of this
principle is an appeal to the authority of Archimedes, who
he says makes use of it to prove that a balance loaded with
equal weights on both ends will stay still.
I grant this to be good reasoning with regard to any
machine such as a balance, that when there is no external
cause for its motion it must stay still because the machine
has no power of moving itself. But to apply this reasoning to
a man is to take for granted that the man is a machineand
that is just what we are arguing about.
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universal fatality Reid means the thesis that everything that happens
was predetermined, bound to happen, theoretically predictable, from the
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I shall look at it in each way, so that we can see all its force.
(1) It may be thought that as nothing can be known to be
going to happen unless it is certainly going to happen, so if
it is certainly going to happen it must be necessary.
This opinion is supported by the authority of Aristotle,
no less. He held the doctrine of liberty, but believed at the
same time that whatever is certainly going to happen must
be necessary; so in order to defend the liberty of human
actions he maintained that contingent events are not (in
advance) certain to be going to happen; but I dont know of
any modern advocate of liberty who has defended it on that
basis.
It must be granted that, just as
whatever was certainly was, and
whatever is certainly is,
so also
whatever shall be certainly shall be.
These are identical propositions, which cant be doubted by
anyone who thinks clearly about them.
But I know no rule of reasoning by which from the
premise Event E certainly will occur it follows that Event
E will be necessary. The manner of Es production, whether
as free or as necessary, cant be concluded from the time
of its production, whether that be past, present, or future.
That it will occur doesnt imply that it will occur necessarily
any more than it implies that it will occur freely. For present,
past and future have no more connection with necessity than
they have with freedom.
I grant therefore that from events being foreseen it follows
that they are certainly going to happen; but from their being
certainly going to happen it doesnt follow that they are
necessary.
(2) If the argument means that an event must be necessary merely because it is foreseen, this doesnt follow
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something future can be known now only if its necessary cause exists now,
it must be equally true that
something past can be known now only if some consequence of it with which it is necessarily connected
exists now.
The fatalist might say that past events are indeed necessarily
connected with the present, but he surely wont go so far as
Before leaving this topic, I should discuss one other use that
the advocates of necessity have made of divine foreknowledge.
This has been said:
All those consequences of the scheme of necessity
that are thought most alarming are also consequences
of the doctrine of Gods foreknowledgeespecially the
proposition that God is the real cause of moral evil.
For to suppose God to foresee and permit what it
was in his power to have prevented is the same as
to suppose him to will it and directly cause it. He
distinctly foresees all the actions of a mans life and
all the consequences of them; so if he didnt think that
some particular man and his conduct were suitable
for his plan of creation and providence, he certainly
wouldnt have brought that man into existence at all.
This reasoning involves a supposition that seems to contradict itself. That all the actions of a particular man are
clearly foreseen and at the same time that that man is never
brought into existence seems to me to be a contradiction;
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[here = justice]
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Closing remarks
Extremes of all kinds ought to be avoided; yet men are
prone to go to extremes, avoiding one at the cost of rushing
to its opposite.
The most dangerous of all extreme opinions are those
that exalt the powers of man too high and those that sink
mans powers too low.
By raising them too high we feed pride and vainglory; we
lose the sense or our dependence on God, and attempt things
that are too much for us. By depressing them too low we
cut the sinews of action and of obligation, and are tempted
to think We cant do anything, so there is nothing for us to
donothing that it makes sense even to attemptexcept
to be carried passively along by the stream of necessity.
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